Categorie archief: Films

Dungeon Classics #41: L.A. Confidential

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

L.A. Confidential (1997, USA)

Director: Curtis Hanson
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger
Running Time: 138 mins.

Three L.A. cops in the 1950s – three different personalities – each dealing with corruption in their own way. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is a celebrity cop, something like the influencer of his day, working closely with tabloid journalist Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) and frequently appearing on the TV cop show Badge of Honor. Bud White (Russell Crowe) is an explosive sledgehammer with a particular hatred for abusive men. He’s not afraid to bend the rules to punish the guilty. Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) is the son of a legendary cop who wants to advance his career strictly by the book, which is hard to do in a city with a massively corrupt police force. When organized crime boss Mickey Cohen goes to prison, he leaves a wide gap for new players to move in, and the three leads soon find themselves in the middle of the heat. L.A. Confidential is a true masterpiece: a fantastic recreation of 1950s Los Angeles and an exceptional character study. The three leads, young and fairly unknown at the time, are truly stellar in their roles. There’s also an excellent supporting cast, with Kim Basinger especially stealing the spotlight as high-class prostitute Lynn Bracken. A great movie from start to finish – on the QT and very hush-hush.

Double Bill #17: Kill Bill Vol. 1 & Kill Bill Vol. 2

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

After Jackie Brown, Tarantino took a long break (six years), but when he returned, he did so with a vengeance. If you’re going to compare a Tarantino movie, you compare it to every other movie ever made that wasn’t made by Quintin Tarantino. By that standard, the two-part Kill Bill saga stands among the finest pieces of cinematic art of the century so far. Here, Tarantino does what he does best – lifting fragments from forgotten genre and exploitation cinema and fusing them into something wholly original – better than ever before. It’s a double-edged sword in many ways: a bold blend of Eastern and Western influences, effortlessly shifting between comic-book ultraviolence and moments of genuine emotional weight. This tonal balance works largely thanks to Uma Thurman’s superb central performance as The Bride, which anchors the madness with real feeling. The story itself is simple, yet utterly captivating. The characters are fascinating and endlessly quotable. The style is unmistakable and unmatched. Volume 1 plays like the ultimate samurai/yakuza/action movie of your childhood – the one you could watch endlessly – only somehow even better. Volume 2, by contrast, leans into the rhythms of a spaghetti western, offering more of Tarantino’s signature dialogue and a terrific performance by David Carradine, who reimagines his Kung Fu character Kwai Chang Caine as a pop culture loving and psychopathic mentor. Structured in ten chapters and told out of chronological order, Kill Bill unfolds as a true epic, packed with all of Tarantino’s hallmarks: razor-sharp humor, wax-museum characters, stylized violence, brilliant music choices, and a Pussy Wagon–load of pop culture references. The only Double Bill I actually experienced in theaters – back when Volume 2 was released in 2004 – and one I’ll never forget. Whenever The Whole Bloody Affair finally arrives in European theaters, I will be there for sure.

Double Bill #16: The Punisher & Showdown in Little Tokyo

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Okay, these are not the best movies I’ve ever reviewed for this section. Still, they’re classic actioners from my favorite movie era: the glorious nineties. What they have in common is Dolph Lundgren taking on the Yakuza. Both films also feature a torture scene, and in both cases Lundgren escapes in much the same way, before giving his torturer a taste of his own medicine. In The Punisher (1989, Mark Goldblatt), based on the Marvel comic, the presumed-dead cop Frank Castle hunts down members of the Franco crime family for the murder of his own family (he’s already killed 125). The Francos, led by Giovanni Franco (Jeroen Krabbé), are under pressure as well from a ruthless Yakuza clan eager to take over their territory. In Showdown in Little Tokyo, Lundgren’s cop is likewise driven by revenge for the murder of his parents. This time he teams up with L.A. cop Brandon Lee of the Asian Task Force, and together they take on a Yakuza faction known as Tetsu No Tsume, or the Iron Claw. Frankly, Lundgren and Lee were B-choice action stars of this period, and these films are unmistakably B-style entertainment. That said, the villains are very well done. Lady Kanaka (Kim Miyori) in The Punisher especially leaves a strong impression. Furthermore, the non-stop action and violence are delivered in generous doses. In the end, this Double Bill may not be prestige cinema, but it’s a solid blast of grimy, old-school ’90s action that knows exactly what it is and never pretends otherwise.

Nice Dreams

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld


Director: Tommy Chong
Written by: Tommy Chong, Cheech Marin
Cast: Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Stacy Keach The Sarge Stedanko

Year / Country: 1981, USA
Running Time: 88 mins.

In their third feature, once again directed by Tommy Chong himself, the duo is dealing marijuana cones from an ice-cream truck. Police Sgt. Stedanko (Stacy Keach), whom we first met in Up in Smoke, the original Cheech and Chong movie, is addicted to dope and convinced that getting high is the best way to nail his suspected drug peddlers. Meanwhile, lizards are crawling all over the plants of the duo’s suppliers, and Stedanko begins to develop distinctly lizard-like features of his own.

As comedians, Cheech and Chong are known for heavy improvisation. Some of it works better than the rest, and not every joke or line of dialogue lands. Still, the movie is worth the price of admission for the sequence in which they attempt to have a threesome with a Latina woman, only for her animal-hating Mexican husband to come home unexpectedly. It’s a terrific stretch of pure slapstick chaos.

The film is also packed with wonderfully oddball characters, including Paul Reubens as the uniquely weird Howie Hamburger Dude and Dr. Timothy Leary playing himself, sending the guys on one hell of an acid trip inside an insane asylum. Nice Dreams is a cultural time capsule, a groovy museum piece of curious eighties pop culture. These dudes really knew how to conjure comedy magic.

Rating:

Biography: Tommy Chong (1938, Edmonton, Canada) is a comedian, actor, writer, and activist best known as one half of the legendary stoner duo Cheech & Chong. Raised partly in Canada and later the United States, Chong first made his mark in music and improvisational comedy before teaming up with Cheech Marin in the late 1960s. Together, they became countercultural icons with hit comedy albums and films like Up in Smoke, shaping weed humor for generations to come. Beyond comedy, Chong has appeared in films and TV shows, including a memorable role on That ’70s Show, and has been a vocal advocate for cannabis legalization, even serving a brief prison sentence in the early 2000s that further cemented his status as a counterculture symbol.

Filmography: Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie (1980), Nice Dreams (1981), Still Smokin (1983), Cheech & Chong’s The Corsican Brothers (1984), Toto: Without Your Love (1986, Music Video), Far Out Man (1990)